It's Just a Name

I could be sleeping. It is Saturday morning -- not early by any stretch of the imagination, but earlier than I have to get up this Saturday.

That said, I've been laying in bed a wake for the past two hours just mulling over things I could write about in a blog. Thinking about the 100 Word Challenge over at Velvet Verbosity and putting ideas together for that little bit of writing.

And I was thinking about names and how the sir names of the children I teach now are so different from the sir names of the children I grew up with.

That took me on a whole different train of thought about how things in our country have really changed and then I was really wide awake so I decided to stop thinking and just get up and write.

Now back to those names. In my class at school there were names like Jones, Baker, Nix, Bellar, Drake, Brown. Then there were Patterson, Cartwright, Flemming, Harper. I think you are beginning to get the picture. We were not a very diversified community.

Oh, we had a handful of Hispanic names. Garcia, Hernandez, and Cantu (ah Frank and his brother. I had wee bit of a crush on Frank. I remember at one school dance . . .that's a different blog) Back to names that was about it.

There were three main churches and several smaller ones, but most people went to the Baptist, Methodist or Church of Christ. There was a Catholic church, but only the Mexicans went there or at least in my little mind's world that is who attended there.

I grew up very WASP. Although I had no idea what that meant and to this day don't know for sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It is just a label to me that says all our names were easy to say and spell.

Where I taught in the '70s and '80 was a wee bit more diversified and I learned to pronounce and spell a few more Hispanic names and learned a smattering of Asian names.

The shock came when we moved to the coast. The names here have thrown me for a loop. Not longer is the norm Smith, Jones, Brown, Garcia and Hernandez. Now I've learned a whole new world of names. More Hispanic names and a whole new world of bohemian names. My favorite is Hrncir. For me there just aren't enough vowels. I've learned to ask people to repeat that please and would you mind spelling that. Most don't -- they've been spelling it for you their whole lives. And you notice I haven't listed any names here --- the reason being is I can't spell them and I'm too lazy to go get the phone book.

Now the morning grows late. The hubby is up and distracting me -- I've totally lost my train of thought if there was actually ever one here.